For the elites, it all comes down to money. More specifically, how much of yours and mine can they shave off the edges and appropriate through the “governing process.”

The elites backed Obama in 2008 because they saw in him someone who could be easily manipulated and therefore quite profitable for them. Three-quarters of a trillion in stimulus dollars isn’t chump change, even to them. He disappointed some of them in this area, but for the most part turned out to be a good Chicago boy who played by the city’s rules of corruption and sent the money on along like he was told.

But now the elites have a problem with Obama – and it can’t be fixed.

In an economic downturn, people become angry and frustrated. The longer the downturn lasts, and the worse it gets, the more angry and frustrated they become. That only matters to government, of course, during elections. And this one’s going to be a whopper. The elites are concerned that the Dem/Rep facade in D.C. may pull a Humpty Dumpty on them at the ballot box.

Here’s what you can expect economically between now and the election. Europe, which the elites have wanted America to emulate for so many years, is in the economic toilet and is reaching for the flush lever on the euro – the elites’ pride and joy.

Greece, Italy, Spain, France and much of the rest of Euroland have been living on borrowed money for so many years they’ve forgotten it has to be paid back. Every year the banks rolled over their debt and gave them a bit more to spend. (The elites love safe investments, like government bonds.) So this part of Euroland is not going to pay the money back. Because they can’t.

Germany, the only Euroland country with sound finances has declined to sacrifice its economy to bail out the spendthrifts. European banks are already broke, because they are loaded up on Greek and other spendthrift nations’ debts.

Consequently, there will be no more lending to Euroland – except for the U.S. Federal Reserve via the International Monetary Fund, as the elites try to shift the burden to the U.S. taxpayer. In an election year.

Living standards in Euroland will decline abruptly and precipitously, something unions (which Europe loves) and students (which they tolerate) will not accept. People and governments with no money don’t buy things. And tourists will find someplace safer to visit.

The elites are going to lose a lot of money in this failure. And they are terrified they are going to lose control in America.

Big enviro promised its elitist donors a world financial tax via the global warming fraud. What’s coming is going to drive big enviro “fracking insane,” instead – because fracking is the only “fracking thing” that will pull our own well-concealed real unemployment rate out of the world economic toilet. The elites don’t trust Obama to do what has to be done during a second and final term.

If the U.S. economy can’t be pulled out of the toilet and resuscitated via the oil industry, the elites know their “safe” investments … aren’t. Public-union retirements will break municipalities and states and lead the feds to inflate and further debase the dollar to meet federal retirements and benefits. Unemployment and welfare will be cut, and the violence and lockdown will begin in earnest.

Oh, and Obama’s unfixable problem? He’s spun so many narratives about his birth that nobody believes him anymore. In a booming economy, Americans will let it go. In a bad economy, it will become part of the ongoing anger and rage. The elites just can’t take that chance.

For an introductory course at “Frack-U” check these two previous columns: